July 13, 2000

The sweet sounds of summer
This is not your typical band. Its members are young and old, widowers and housewives, students and professionals. Some are recent high school graduates. Others are retired. Many have played their instruments for years. Some are just beginners. Only one common denominator brings all of these people together: their shared love for music.

Enhanced Sert Gallery opens at Carpenter Center
The newly renovated Sert Gallery opened last month providing increased gallery space for modern and contemporary art at the Harvard University Art Museums. Sert is the result of collaboration between the Art Museums and the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES). Both the Gallery and VES are adjacent to the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger Museums, and are located within the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.

Rumors, not roaches, fly, until SPH sets record straight
Some Boston residents awoke last Thursday to warnings that a particularly vicious African insect had invaded their neighborhoods. Fliers affixed to utility polls and slipped under windshield wipers announced an "Infestation Warning" and featured a large picture of an unsavory-looking bug. And before School of Public Health entomologist Richard Pollack could settle down to work in his lab, his phone began to ring with calls from people wanting to know what this was all about.

Top profs' book tips
What do Harvard professors read over the summer? Are the physicists reading poetry and the literature professors reading algebra? Are they reading at all, or do books lie spine-up on the floor, where their owners last hurled them, while fishing rods and gardening trowels and chopping boards get far more use?

President Rudenstine appoints outside committee to advise Radcliffe
President Neil L. Rudenstine announced the appointment of a committee of scholars and academics from outside Radcliffe and Harvard to assist in the process of long-term planning for the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Radioactive seeds gain position
Anthony D'Amico faced a tricky problem. How to place 100 radioactive seeds, each smaller than a rice grain, into tumors inside a walnut-size prostate gland. Properly placed, the seeds destroy cancer cells.

Search for presidential successor begins
The Harvard Corporation has announced the start of the search for a successor to President Neil L. Rudenstine, who recently announced his intention to conclude his service at the close of the 2000-01 academic year, after a decade in office.

Kennedy School establishes overseas program office
The Overseas Program Office has been established at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government to facilitate the administration of international projects at the School.

Fall memorial planned for Nagatomi
Masatoshi Nagatomi, professor of Buddhist Studies emeritus in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, died on June 3, 2000. A private funeral service was held on June 17. A fall memorial is being planned.

HMS to explore 'complementary' medical practices
In a move that taps its faculty's depth and breadth of expertise to expand academic inquiry into complementary medicine, Harvard Medical School (HMS) has established the Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies. David M. Eisenberg, director of the Center for Alternative Medicine Research and Education at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and associate professor of medicine at the Medical School, has been appointed director of the new division.

New Source of Insulin Discovered
Insulin is like gold to a diabetic, and researchers at Harvard Medical School have found a new way to mine it.

The hospice journey: Student volunteers, interns take the path to Chilton House
Harvard Divinity student Alyssa May leaned over Claire's bed, joking with the older woman about dancing and horseback riding. Claire, looking small and frail under the covers of her high, railed bed, joked back, her soft voice difficult to hear.

Heroes honored
Harvard honored 220 Central Administration staffers in June, naming them Harvard Heroes for leadership, teamwork, adaptability, and work that exceeds expectations.

Photographer shares his Afghan experiences in two classes
Edward Grazda has been taking pictures in Afghanistan since 1980, shortly after the Soviets invaded the country. He had been in India, but news of the conflict drew him northward until he found himself in Peshawar, the border town on the Pakistan side of the Khyber pass. It was there that he got to know Afghan resistance fighters (the mujahedeen or "holy warriors") who agreed to guide him into the mountainous areas where the war was being fought.

University's environmental record lauded
Harvard has received an award recognizing the excellence of its environmental programs as well as its record of complying with environmental regulations.

Test shows those closer to death
A 15-minute mental test shows promise for identifying people 65 years and older who are most likely to die in the next two years, according to a study at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Harvard has a constructive summer
The growing season is upon us, and like everything around it, Harvard is going to be getting a bit bigger during the summer months.